Impressment

Impressment, also known as press-ganging, was an act of forced conscription of United States Navy sailors by the United Kingdom's Royal Navy that occurred in the early 1800s. American ships were seized by the British and their crew members were forced to join the British navy, whose 1,000 ships that were fighting the French Empire needed more crew members. This action was one of the causes of the War of 1812.

History
Impressment first occurred back in the days of the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), when Great Britain's Royal Navy captured United States ships. Many of the US Navy sailors were former British subjects, and the British captains would force them to rejoin the Royal Navy and serve as a crew member on one of their ships. The action became a serious issue in the mid-1790s when America declared its neutrality in the French Revolutionary Wars, and in response, both the Republic of France and Great Britain seized their ships. The British required servicemen for their 1,000 warships, a huge navy of which there was a shortage of sailors, so they picked them off of American vessels.

In the early 1800s, it again became a problem after President Thomas Jefferson again declared neutrality in the Anglo-French warfare of the Napoleonic Wars, and in 1807, an international crisis began when the United States ship USS Chesapeake was fired on by HMS Leopard in the "Chesapeake-Leopard Affair" after US captain James Barron refused to allow the British blockading frigate to search his ship for missing British crew members that deserted to the US Navy. The action was one of the causes of the War of 1812, in addition to Britain's support of Indian raids against the United States and the British insults to America.

Impressment continued during the Anglo-American conflict from 1812 to 1814, although after Emperor Napoleon I (ruler of the French Empire) was defeated in April 1814, the practice ended (although Britain was still at war with the United States). In 1835, laws were passed outlawing impression, ending the disputes for good.